Le Compotoir du Relais - When the inovation is actually the classic!

The beggining fo all this trend in Bistronomique basically started with Yves Canderborde, when he left Le Relégade, and decided to serve simples, classic, good food for affordable prices and his very charming Le Compotoir de Relais. This little bistro is located in the always charming Saint Germain area, close to the Odeon. The restaurant is a small “aquarium” style with a few tables outside where you can do one of the Parisians favorite sports: People watching. We set outside and it was a tad cold, no worries, they provided us with some blankets to our legs!

The service is quite Parisian, slightly rude but very efficient! The menu was vast and full of classic and a bit edgy choices. I was craving for a real patê de campgane, since I had arrived in Paris and could not resist when I saw that beautiful white porcelain squared bowl full of this Patê. It was a great choice, it was heavy and very deep tasting, with the forestry taste, with a great Italian bread toast! I could not eat it all, cause it was huge, but is great start for a large group to a taste of country France.

For main I had the belly pig, imagine a VERY thick bacon, I know it sounds disgusting, cause of all the fat part, but I promise it is not! The meat part was incredibly tender and moist, with a rich flavor; the fat part was almost creamy and was a interesting mix of textures with the more consistent part. It was lying in a bet of this velvety mashed potatoes, and covered with this tangy sauce, with a heavy dosage of butter! As French as it gets!

Also in the table it was order this galette (a young chicken, sorry!) , that was cooked very simples, baked, and served with potatoes. Nevertheless it had a wonderful light mustard taste a very crispy skin and was so moist that I wondered how that was possible. This is as classic as it gets, but sometimes is that you want from Paris?

Le Compotoir du Relais
Carrefour de l´Ódeon, 5
Paris (m: Ódeon)
Tel: 01 44 27 07 97

3***
$$$

Le Timbre – If only that was the average waiter!

As u may had noticed I had been in Paris eating in this nice little bistros that don´t charge u a fortune for wonderful food. If I had to pick the restaurant that best represents this, from my trip, it is Le Timbre. This tine little 24 people restaurant is not located in any of the fancy areas of Paris, it is hidden in a hard to get street, with just a big window that u can see the entire restaurant from outside. Two rows of table, half seat on the couch the other half on little wood chairs, to get to the sofa u must pull your table, actually the waiter will do that.

The service was incredibly nice for Paris, maybe because the waiter was from Manchester and not Parisian, but what stroke me as remarkable was not how nice he was, but the fact that he was the SINGLE person in the restaurant. After a few moments I realized he was the Chef, waiter and host! Absolutely incredible, considering the quality of the food and the service.

We took the full menu, I started with escargot and lentils, with a herb olive oil. The textures were wonderful, the slightly floury part of the lentils with the firm, escargot. The iron flavor of the lentils with the delicate escargots. As my second I opted for the classic, confit de carnard with mashed potatoes, the duck was perfect extremely crispy on the outside and moist in the inside, with the fatty after taste that completes so well the deepness of the duck flavor. The mashed potatoes were rustic and with a touch or garlic were wonderfull complement to the duck.

The deserts were also great. I had a Mil Foglie, a thousand layers  with a vanilla cream that was 3 layers of a wonderfully crispy biscuit with a very delicate cream, nice textures. Also we had a pear cooked in brandy with some honey, the tastes balanced very well. The food was remarkably well executed for a single person restaurant, nothing fancy but very tasty. In the end the check was affordable even cheaper then average touristy places in Paris.

Le Timbre
Rue de Sainte Beuve, 3
Paris 75006
Tel 0145491040

3***
$$$

Paris - eating in Paris is like dreaming anywhere else!

This past week, without any posts, was of pure inspiration, I went to Paris. For 7 days I lunched, snacked and dinned, doing nothing else then contemplating the French biggest treasury: its culinary. Paris is the ideal setting to enjoy such amazing food, I am sure that after one week of random walks through its streets there is nothing like it! Each corner that u turn there is a wonderful surprise of incredible balance and beauty.

I have been flirting with a trip like this for some time now, one week eating in the restaurants of this new movement in the French culinary world, called: Bistronomique. This same movement seems to be arriving in Brazil very strongly now, very appropriate given our crisis mode. Is there anything more charming then a little restaurant, with a clear signature cuisine, for only €38? Signature cuisine is the French’s specialty since Carême – I read this week the wonderful “Cooking for Kings: The life on Antoin Carême” – and these days you don’t even have to be French to have a Bistrô in Paris, as I learned dinning in the amazing Le Timbre.

Paris is a city where even the poor, dirty student bar serves an incredible cheese platter, and a very decent food, as I discovered in Le Reflect, where else in the world does that happen? I have to say that I did not only found good cheap food, Paris is also a city of luxury, as the incredible macaroons from Ladurée can bring you to bankruptcy or sugar poisoning in the most delightful way possible. 

In a city of dreams it is possible to eat the most incredible soufflé that I have ever tasted, to the point of considering if I have ever had eaten this dish before, the cloudy texture of it made me think that only in Paris u can eat a cloud and still be on firm ground, right there at Le Cigale Recamier. Paris is not perfect after all is full of Parisians, but I have to say that this unsual touristy week of mine brought me a more understanding view of them, it must be hard to share that, especially when u are craving the incredible pear ice-cream at Pozzeto,  at the sizzling Marais, after the best falafel sandwich that you will have ever eaten and the L´as the Falafel.

If you are into more edgy culinary you are also in the right place, why not check it out the Chez L´ami Jean for a light touch of Basque cuisine/technique in a classical dark bistro, the mix is incredible, like it is to find the George Pompidou with its crazy architecture blending so well with the beautiful classical Parisian buildings, with its iron balconies.  Eating in Paris is also sitting in the outside and feeling the cold winter chill on your cheeks, while u appreciate a glass of wine, or eat a fantastic terrine at the Le Comptoir de Relaix.

We all must live in Paris before we die, maybe you don’t have to live there for real, but it is necessary to take time and enjoy the city other them the classical touristy attractions, I cramped 15 fantastic meals in one week, but other than that just walked, drove a Velib enjoying the liberty of free time I had, just like the chef of Le Pre Vérre does with his slightly creative bistro food. You must also walk into a boulangerie, a fromagerie and a charcuterie even though you do not know (like me) half of the cheese and sausages that they are so proud of.

The closest to tourism that I did was to travel to Bretagne eating wonderful crêpes at Le Chalet 8eme and to the almost perfect, and almost impossible to get a table, Breizh Café. In the end in the middle of craziness of Refuges des Foundues and its baby bottles and the peace of the idyllic Ille de Saint Louis I found a city for foodies but also for those in search of beauty. The week was completed with amazing company from the ones that can cook Tarteflet to the ones that can´t eta half of the things I enjoy, but in the end it all comes together with a nice bottle of red wine (maybe many bottles…).

 

Ps: Caros 3 leitores, em homenagem aos amigos que estiveram comigo e que não falam português esses textos serão em Inglês, desculpe!